


On a Bright Summer Morning

by ap_aelfwine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hugs, Multi, Pre-Hogwarts, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 12:36:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ap_aelfwine/pseuds/ap_aelfwine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the first day of the summer holidays, ten year old Harry Potter is working in the perfectly normal garden of Number Four Privet Drive. But what begins as a typically miserable day is about to turn wonderful, as Harry meets his first friends: three girls who are every bit as not-normal as Harry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meeting Luna

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: PG. AU warning. Luna Warning. Yours Truly warning.  
> ***  
> The characters and situations of the Harry Potter series are copyright J.K. Rowling. They may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. The use of these characters and situations is not to be construed as challenge to said copyright. They are merely borrowed for this work of non-commercial fanfiction, from which the author derives no financial benefit.

It was a bright sunny summer morning, and Harry Potter was working in the garden of his extremely respectable family's perfectly maintained and thoroughly upper middle class suburban semi at Number Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. It was the first day out of school, and he was already missing his hours of respite from work at home. Sure, he had to keep his head down at school, and he had to make sure he didn't outdo Dudley, which took particular finesse because if his marks were _too_ much worse he might get smacked and locked in the cupboard round the clock for his 'unforgivable displays of stupidity and ignorance' rather than for his 'freakish attempts to make his betters look bad.' And he got hunted by Dudley and his friends when they had the chance, but that happened at home as well.

And at least at school he didn't have to spend hours in the sun, digging up beds, planting, mowing, and all the rest. A day like this was better than the cupboard, of course, but not all that much.

He would have liked some water, but he wasn't allowed to drink from the hosepipe, because it was savage and might make the neighbours think his relatives were denying him the use of a drinking glass. He also wasn't allowed to go inside to the sink, because he wasn't allowed to be lazy and stop before his work was done and possibly dirty the floor as well. Nor was he allowed to have a perfectly good drinking glass, or even a plastic cup, out here lying about like a piece of rubbish, or, for that matter, neatly tucked away as if he were hiding something and, therefore, up to no good.

Therefore, he was trying not to think about water, since he'd not be allowed any until he was altogether done and it was time for him to come inside and cook his family's dinner. He was also getting ready to stand up from his work which was acceptable only because he'd finished planting his current set of flowers and he needed to get another flat of plants from the shelter of the garden shed. And it was at just that moment, whilst he was still kneeling beside the flower bed that a pair of arms snaked behind him and a girl's voice whispered in his ear "Oh, there you are! I'd been wondering why I was here. Wonderful!"

Harry didn't have the stereotypical almost ten year old boy's distaste for girls, but all the same he wasn't accustomed to being so close to one. He wasn't accustomed to being so close to anyone, really, unless, of course, he were being battered. It was a wonder, he would think later, that he didn't jump out of his skin, at least metaphorically. But at the time all he could think of was something to the effect of: _She's nice... she's warm but she doesn't make me feel hot in a bad way like the sunlight does on a day like today... who is she?_

At last, after a time that seemed very long but was probably in reality only a minute or two, he said "I'm sorry, but I expect my cousin will hurt you if you stay here. I'm afraid you'd better go."

"I don't think I should be doing that, really. You see, I was at home in the garden until a few minutes ago, and when things like this happen it's usually the case that both people involved are exactly where they need to be at the moment. Either that or the Nargles are playing with us, but I didn't see any so I don't think it's them, and they've not been able to hide from me since I turned seven and Auntie Rhona started teaching me how to use my Good Eye. And it's really great good luck that I was wearing clothes today, and I think surely I must have had a reason for not only putting them on this morning but then keeping them on after I went outside, when it's such a lovely sunny day and usually there wouldn't be any good reason to do such a thing, and I suppose that reason must be because you'd be embarrassed if I weren't wearing any clothes. At least I get the feeling that you would be at this point in our relationship. Would you be?"

Harry didn't know how to answer that question. He knew folk were meant to wear clothes, and he'd never seen a girl without hers on, or even thought very much about the possibility. He imagined he would be meant to be embarrassed, or perhaps ashamed, something like that, if he saw a girl who was completely naked bare, or even dressed in nothing but her underpants. But at the same time it seemed to him that anything this girl did would be right. Not right by his relatives' standards, maybe, but right all the same.

He liked how the strange girl sounded. She didn't talk quite like anyone he'd ever heard before, so far as he knew, unless maybe it was somebody on the television whom he might have heard through the cupboard door, although usually the Dursleys were quick to be changing the channel every time he could hear accents that weren't like the accents of most people in Little Whinging, which was to say either posh or posh kids trying to sound 'well hard,' the way Dudley did when his mother wasn't round to say he shouldn't. Her accent wasn't at all like that; most especially, she hadn't any of the sharpness that went with sounding 'well hard'. He thought she sounded a bit like some people Aunt Petunia had called a 'stupid yokel and a dirty Irish thug' before changing the channel, but a little bit posh, somehow, at the same time. And somehow she almost sounded as if she were singing, even though she was only talking. He very much wanted to hear more of her speech, but he couldn't stand the thought of Dudley hitting such a nice person. "Really, miss, I don't want you to be hurt."

"Oh, don't worry so, sir. If I'm meant to be here, I'm meant to be. I should think that your cousin, who really sounds like a very disagreeable person who shouldn't be related to anyone as nice as you are, will not even be able to see me."

As if they'd somehow been prompted by the girl's words, Harry heard Dudley and his best friend come tramping past. "Oi, look, there's Potty! What's happening, Scarhead? Having a bit of fun in the dirt, are we? Want your face rubbed in it some more? Let's give him a hand with that, Big D."

"Come on, Piers, we can hunt him later. _Captain Slaughter: Alien Smasher_ is going to be on in a minute, and it's a new episode. I hear in this one he's on leave on the Planet of the Three-Breasted Bikini Babes, and then the Kringles try to kill him again."

"Good point, D. Maybe he'll get to blow up the whole planet. That would be awesome!" And paying absolutely no further attention to Harry, and none whatsoever to begin with to the mysterious girl, Dudley and Piers made their way into the house.

"I take it they wouldn't have normally done that, good sir?"

"Normally they would have at least taken the time to throw a couple of clods at me. And why are you calling me 'sir'? I'm just Harry."

"Well, good and honourable Sir Just Harry, it's because it would be rude not to, when you're calling me 'miss'. But if you'll permit, we could introduce ourselves, and then you'll be very welcome to call me Luna."

"Okay. I'm Harry P--"

"Wait, good and honourable Sir Just Harry Puh! We should be facing each other when we introduce ourselves. That's very important, unless I'm completely confused. Or else this is Opposite Day, but that just happened, or Backwards Day, but that won't come until next fortnight and a quarter... So, we should be facing each other. Oh, wait, pardon me. I completely forgot to let go of you! How silly of me! Well, you smell nice, but still... So, here, I'll let go, and we'll face each other, and then we can introduce ourselves and you can call me Luna instead of Miss." She let go of him, and he was surprised to realise that he rather wished she hadn't done. Introduced or not, very warm day or not, it felt nice to have somebody so close to him who wasn't hurting him. He didn't know what to say when she said he smelt nice, but it seemed as if it would be rude to contradict her, so he didn't.

And then she'd come round to face him. She wasn't like anybody he'd ever seen before. She was tiny, slender, and probably a little younger than himself. She had big grey eyes, a bright smile, and blonde hair falling loose down to her waist. There was a daisy tucked behind one of her ears. She was wearing an outfit of a sort he'd never really seen before, a loose t-shirt with writing in a foreign language and a skirt that looked to be pieced together out of scraps of cloth in almost every shade and pattern Harry had ever seen or even imagined and several more that he hadn't. She was perfect. He had no idea why he thought that, or what it meant, but she was. The Sun rose in the East. The sky wasn't green. And this girl who was apparently named Luna something, although they hadn't introduced themselves yet, was perfect.

Not that other girls couldn't also be perfect. He didn't know why it was important to think that, but for some reason it was. Luna was a perfect Luna, and some other girls might just as easily be perfect versions of themselves.

She held out her hand. "Greetings and salutations, Good and Honourable Sir. I am Luna Mairéad Radha Llywelyn Mihoshi Sasha Nyota Bob Good Lord How Many Names Has This Poor Child Got? Fatima Breandán Myfanwy Lovegood. I'm honoured and charmed to meet you, and I would be delighted if you would call me Luna, although you're welcome to pick another name if you'd rather, or even to give me a new one. And might I ask your own name?"

"Err... Hello. I'm Harry Potter. Pleased to meet you, Luna." He realised he was meant to take her hand, and did. He thought they'd shake hands, much as he saw adults do with each other, but instead Luna took a firm grip of his hand and didn't let go at all.

"So, that's who you are! I'm so very happy to meet you at last, because I've always known we'd find each other one day. And I'm looking forward tremendously to introducing you to my dear friend Ginevra, because she'll be simply over the Moon at finally meeting you. I suppose she'll be a bit disappointed that you haven't got a loyal herd of cuddly multi-coloured talking ponies with little symbols on their bottoms who follow you about and help you to help people who, well, need help, but I'm sure she'll get over that. And maybe we could do something about the ponies, even if you don't have them yet. Unless you do, and they're only hiding somewhere?"

"I don't. Or at least I don't think I do. I've never seen them." Harry wasn't used to letting himself imagine such things, but something about having a girl appear out of nowhere, hug him, and prove herself completely invisible to Dudley and Piers left him wondering what else might happen of which he hadn't had any inkling before today. He couldn't help but wonder if he might even see a flying motorbike, like the one he sometimes dreamt of seeing and even riding upon.

"Well, we can work on that, Harry Potter."

"You could call me Harry, Luna. At least if you'd like to."

"Oh, I definitely would like to, Harry. Thank you. I think I'm going to enjoy calling you Harry a great deal. And I think I'm going to enjoy you calling me Luna even more. So, Harry, what are you doing gardening in such a peculiar-looking neighbourhood without a pony or a House Elf or even a bit of magic to help you?"

"Magic? But that's only in stories. Ones my aunt and uncle won't let me read."

"Really? That's not very nice of them at all. They shouldn't stifle your education like that. Why, imagine if someone's relatives wouldn't let them read any stories with bananas in them, just because they didn't like bananas themselves, or even if they were allergic to them, and on top of that tried to tell them that there were no such things as bananas except in the stories they wouldn't let the poor person read. I'd try to explain it to them that way, but alas I can see already that it wouldn't do any good. And am I correct in assuming that the blond and pink gorilla-whale-creature that you said was your cousin is their son? The one who had the sort of ferrety boy that looked a bit like _my_ miserable cousin Draco, only not as blond, following him about?”

“Err... yeah. That's Dudley. He's the son of my Aunt Petunia and my Uncle Vernon. But everybody I've ever met, at least before you, said there wasn't any magic, not just them. The teachers at school and the other kids all do.”

“Goodness, that's not right at all. Aside from the fact that it's very rude to say things like that, it's terribly unrealistic of them. If there's not magic in the world then how could there be dragons and hippogriffs and House Elves?"

“I don't think they've ever seen any of those.”

“Well, that's just plain silly of them. I've never seen the Patriarch of Constantinople, or a Crumple-horned Snorkack, or the city of Scranton in America, but I accept that they exist. I'd hate to think how these people will deal with it if a dragon, say, eats them. Not that it's good to be eaten by a dragon if one does accept that dragons exist, but at least that way one knows what's happening. I can't imagine how terrible it would be to be eaten by something if one couldn't accept that it was even there.”

Harry wasn't sure what to say to that. Luna was terribly nice, but she was also terribly confusing, it seemed. And he was feeling a little unsteady on his feet.

“Oh goodness!”

"Luna?" She had her arm about him, now, and his head was leant on her shoulder.

"You nearly fell over, Harry. I think you're dehydrated, and I have to say that, although it's a pleasure to catch you and a delight to help hold up the greatest Wizarding hero of our generation, I'd rather you took better care of yourself so that I wouldn't have to do that sort of thing, unless it were simply for our mutual enjoyment. I rather think you need to be drinking much more water than you have been, doing something like what you appear to have been doing on a day like today."

"Not allowed water. Not till I'm done."

"Now that is simply stupid and silly, not to mention mean, and I will not tolerate it. Dizzy, would you be so kind as to bring our Harry a large glass of water, please?"

"Don't worry. I'll be fine. I'm used to it. If Aunt Petunia sees me with a glass of water, I'll get the belt when Uncle Vernon gets home, or maybe worse."

"I don't think she'll be seeing the water, Harry. After all, your cousin and his friend weren't able to see me, or even able to notice that you had an invisible person hugging you and talking with you, and I think I have reasonable grounds for thinking that your other relatives will suffer from the same deficiency. Or is it suffering, really? I suspect they'd be happier not seeing me. After all, they might not be able to tell the difference between me and a dragon or a hippogriff, and I gather that seeing one of those would make them very upset, because they don't want to believe that they exist. Ah, thank you, Dizzy."

Somehow Luna now had a glass of water in her hand. It held at least a pint, a measure Harry knew very well from cooking, and it was so cool that there were little droplets clinging to the outside of it. He could imagine how it would feel, trickling into his mouth and down his throat...

"Here, Harry. You really should be drinking this. Dear Dizzy brought it for you, after all. Is water not what you want? I suppose I could have her bring you a pint of Daddy's best home-brewed old ale. I'm told it's very strong, and I'm not allowed to drink it myself, but Daddy never said Harry Potter wasn't allowed to drink it. Oh, and I think we've some vinegar as well, and there's very likely to be some buttermilk in the cool cupboard, and I'm sure we've plenty of ink if you'd prefer that instead, as we use it for the printing press all the time."

"Err, no, water's fine..."

"Oh, how silly of me! You might be worried that I'm going to give you a sleeping potion so I can take you away to my lair and have my wicked way with you! Please don't worry about that. Mummy told me I'm not allowed to do such a thing until I'm fourteen, or at least thirteen and two thirds. And besides, I'd really want to get to know you better first. Mummy and Daddy had known each other for about six years, nine months, a fortnight, and two days before she did it, after all, and they'd talked about it first and agreed on a safe word. But you can't be sure about that, because we've only just met each other. What a silly Luna I am sometimes, aren't I? Here, I'll prove there's nothing in the water." She raised the glass to her lips and sipped at it. "See! No sleeping potions! But you're welcome to put your finger on my lips to make sure that they're cool and wet if it would make you feel altogether certain you're safe. I certainly wouldn't be offended if you did. Very much the contrary, in fact."

"Err, no, that's okay. Thanks." He wasn't sure why the thought of putting his finger on Luna's mouth made him feel so awkward, but it did. Maybe it was because his hands were dirty, and it would be rude to make her taste dirt when she was such a very nice person? He took the glass from her hand, touching her fingers lightly in the process. She smiled at him.

The water was delicious. He sipped slowly, knowing that drinking or eating too quickly after going without wasn't a good idea. Halfway through the glass, he was already feeling much better. "Thank you, Luna. This is wonderful."

Her face coloured. "Oh, Harry! You're too kind."

He didn't know what to say to that. It would be rude of him to contradict her, wouldn't it? But here she was acting as if he'd done something incredibly nice when she'd actually done something incredibly nice for him and all he'd done was thank her for doing it. "Well, you're being awfully nice to me, Luna. I just wish I could do something more for you..."

"Well, Harry, if you really want to... I hope it's not too much of an imposition, but... could I, well, stay with you?"

"Really? But... why?"

"Well... because Mummy almost died a few weeks ago, and I'm so happy that she's all right, but she and Daddy went off on a really long expedition to find a complete cure for her and they couldn't take me with them because they were going places that aren't at all safe for little girls and they left me with my Auntie Imogene to watch me, because they said that the neighbours might talk if they left me only with Dizzy. Auntie Imogene is frankly not very nice at all, and now she's got all drunk on some nasty potion and she told me to go get lost for a while, so I don't see why I shouldn't get lost with somebody as nice as you, Harry. Ginevra's away at her Aunt Muriel's, and I really haven't got any other friends, except for you. That is if we are friends..."

"Of course we're friends, Luna. And I've never had a friend at all before, myself." Harry didn't know very much about things people did to comfort each other, but somewhere, somehow, he'd seen somebody put their hand on somebody else's shoulder to try and make them feel better. He did that to Luna, hoping it was the right thing to do.

Apparently it was, because she threw her arms about him and held him, very tightly. "Oh, Harry, thank you. May I stay with you? As friends?"

"I'm afraid I haven't really got a good place for you to stay, but... well, you're welcome to share my cupboard with me. It's not very big, but it's all I've got." Harry had a vague feeling that boys and girls might not be meant to sleep in the same room, especially one as small as his cupboard, but he wasn't very sure about that, just as he wasn't very sure about a lot of things. "That is, if it's all right. I'm sorry if it's rude of me, but the guest bedroom is only for company, and if my relatives can't see you then I'm not sure they'd call you company, and Dudley's second bedroom is full of his broken things so I don't think it would be very comfortable to stay in there, and..."

"I'm sure it will be wonderful, Harry. I'd like nothing better than to share a cupboard with you. Oh, I only wish Ginevra were here to share it with us, because she'd be so very happy to meet you. She'd positively glow, and she's such a wonderful sight when she glows, with her pretty red hair and her soft brown eyes and all her freckles. I'd love for you to see her like that."

"It might be a little bit tight with three of us..."

"Oh, I'm sure it would be fine, even if there were four of us. And Dizzy could help us by making some extra space if we needed it."

He felt as if there was some question he should ask, but he couldn't quite get his mind round it. And he wasn't very used to asking questions. He decided he could think about it later.

"So, Harry, could Dizzy and I help you with your planting? Please?"

Nobody had ever said anything even remotely similar to Harry before. "Err... I'm used to doing it by myself... but if you wouldn't mind..."

"Of course not! Would I have asked if we did? I really like to garden, and Dizzy loves doing things like that even more than I do."

"Okay."

"Thank you, Harry!" Luna hugged him. "So, you're planting flowers in this bed? And only flowers?"

"Yes. The rest are over there in the garden shed. Aunt Petunia says I'm should bring them out one flat at a time, so they don't get stressed."

"I can understand caring for flowers, but not why a person who didn't care for a wonderful boy like Harry Potter would care for them. I hope you don't mind my saying that your Aunt doesn't think things through very well, do you?"

"Err, no."

"That's good. I'd be a bit worried for you if you did. So, would it be all right if Dizzy finishes out the bed? I wouldn't want to deprive you of anything you'd like to do, but I think she'd really enjoy that, and maybe whilst she's doing it we could get to know each other better?"

"Okay."

"Yay!" Luna pressed a little kiss on his cheek. Harry didn't quite know what to think of that, but it felt sort of nice, really. "Thank you so much, Harry. Dizzy, would you be so kind?"

And before his eyes, flats of flowers floated from the garden shed and apparently planted themselves. Harry didn't quite know what to think of this. On the one hand, his work was being done for him. On the other hand, it felt vaguely like cheating. Then again, Dudley cheated every chance he got, whether it was a maths quiz or a game of football, and as far as Harry knew Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia did much the same, whether it was golf and taxes or passing off cakes and biscuits from the shop--or made by Harry--as her own work. He'd done enough work for them. If cheating with the help of a friend meant less sweat and pain for him, he was happy to cheat. And at least this wasn't hurting anyone.

"Does that look good to you, Harry?"

"It's wonderful. Thank you so much, Luna. And thank you, Dizzy." It was possible, Harry thought, that there was something in the world more wonderful than being friends with a girl named Luna who had an invisible friend named Dizzy who liked to work in the garden and to bring folk glasses of water. But he certainly couldn't imagine what it would be.

Oh well. If there should be such a thing, then he and Luna could find it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if you know my writing you can probably make a pretty good guess as to where this is going: Harry/Luna/Hermione/Ginny, no sex until they're old enough but lots of cuddling from the start.


	2. Meeting Hermione

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hermione Granger discovers that she can have adventures.

Despite the fact that she was sitting in the library of a country house, Hermione Granger was not happy. Not that she would have expected to be particularly happy to begin with. Having her parents go off as medical missionaries to do extractions, fillings, and root canals in Africa was one thing. She knew that she should be happy that they were good, thoughtful, kind people who were doing genuinely helpful, life-improving work to help the unfortunate suffering people of the Third World, even if they couldn't take her with them. After all, there were so many people who talked about their principles but did nothing whatsoever to actually live by them in the real world. Her parents weren't like that, and it was a wonderful thing.

She truly was happy about their volunteering, at least in an abstract sense, at least most of the time. But right now she couldn't convince herself to be happy about the fact that their doing it right now meant them leaving her with Aunt Harriet, a corporate raider who was always in her office plotting her next piratical assault on whatever company offered her the perfect combination of vulnerability and valuable assets, and her husband, Uncle Alexander, who wrote ponderous critically-acclaimed Post-Abstract Social Realist dramas for the stage and screen. When he wasn't writing, he managed the refuge for retired, injured, and abandoned trained performing pigs that his late parents had established here on their estate as an act of atonement for the fortune their family had made off tinned hams, sausages, and lard. Not that they'd given up their stake in the business, of course. It was still one of the largest companies trading in the international frozen and packaged foods market. Without that income, Uncle Alexander could never have afforded to write so many plays about the travails of teenagers on the dole in the face of an uncaring society as contrasted with the empty lives of the upper classes and the utter inadequacy of any and all fictional forms, if not language itself, for the task of coming to grips with either one.

The mere fact of being here wasn't so bad, really. She wasn't expected to participate in her aunt's predatory capitalism or her uncle's script-writing and ex-circus pig-cosseting. She didn't even have to pretend that the plays weren't boring, which would have been hard because they were dull to the point that not even Hermione could convince herself that praise from senior critics at both the _Guardian_ and the _Times_ meant they simply had to be fascinating. She could sit and read as long as she wanted to, or stroll the estate's grounds and watch the birds and hares. She'd passed many happy hours doing those things on previous stays here. Her older cousin Astrid was a lovely person, very willing to provide her company when she wanted it but equally willing to give her space when she wanted that.

But Astrid was away as well, off on her gap year working on an archaeological site somewhere in the Hebrides. Not that Hermione was left alone but for her aunt and uncle and their twice-a-week gardening and maid service, of course. Astrid's younger brother, Victor, had come home from Eton the day after Hermione's parents dropped her off. In the past he'd mostly ignored her, but she really didn't like the way he'd taken to looking at her this summer. It made her decidedly uncomfortable. Had Astrid protected Hermione from her brother, either deliberately or simply as a side effect of her presence? Or had Victor simply not noticed her that way before?

Hermione didn't know how to answer the first question, and she really didn't want to think about the second question. What she did know was that she wanted to be far away from her male cousin.

She needed to stop thinking about it, so she opened up her copy of _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight._ "D'you want to go for a bathe, Herms?"

Blast, he'd sneaked up on her. "Oh, not really, thank you, not right now. I might take a dip in the pool later."

"Come now, this is the countryside, and you can't spend _all_ the day reading indoors. Besides, I wasn't thinking about the _pool_. Remember how we used to bathe in the pond when we were kids? It's ever so much nicer out there, away from Dad's office windows. We'd not have to listen to him screaming at producers over the telephone."

_We're still kids, you git. I'll be eleven in September, and you're not yet fourteen._ "No, thank you, Victor."

"Really, Herms, it's not healthy to spend so much time indoors. I'll put my costume on, you can get yours, and we'll meet up here and walk over to the pond, how's that sound?" _Absolutely miserable, that's how it sounds. Even if I wanted to be alone in the pond with you, I_ hate _being called 'Herms.' And where did that come from, anyhow? You used to call me Hermione, just as your parents and Astrid do._

"Not right now..."

"Oh, you know you want to do it. Why don't you bring your book and walk over there with me, at least? You could put your costume on under your clothes, just in case you change your mind. Or you could bring it with you. I promise I'll not look whilst you're changing. After all, we're  _cousins_ ." He waggled his eyebrows in what he no doubt thought was a charmingly roguish fashion, although to Hermione it looked more demented than anything else.

"Err..."

"Very good! I'll go and get my costume on. We'll meet back here in ten minutes." Without another word, he headed for the stairs and his bedroom.

Hermione got up, her book in her hand, and walked outside to the formal garden. She began to pace round the sundial at the centre of it, which didn't show proper time because nobody had ever bothered to orientate it.  _I wish I were still so young that I could believe in fairy tales. That I could make myself think that, if I just clicked my heels and wished, or walked a pattern in a special maze, or lit a candle and said a rhyme, I could go directly home. Well, not home, as there's nobody there right now, but to some place where I'd have friends. Real friends, who'd talk with me about things that we'd all find interesting, or sit quietly with me and read books, or ramble with no goals beyond seeing what might be there for us to see. They'd never look at me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. In fact, I'd be happy that my friends enjoyed the sight of me. A green-eyed boy with messy black hair, and two girls, a dreamy blonde and a charming redhead..._

Where had that bit come from? She'd never met people like that. The boys she was acquainted with from school either ignored her or else made loud, nasty comments about her hair, her teeth, her books, and, starting in the past year or so, her presumed sexual interests and activities. The girls, on the other hand, preferred to make fun of her just out of earshot, so she could know they were talking about her without knowing precisely what they'd said, as if they instinctively grasped that her imagination would make it even worse than anything they could have come up with on their own.

Hermione had never had hallucinations before, not even when she'd had a fever, but right now she could almost see the blonde girl and the boy. They were sitting on a blanket spread over freshly mown grass, talking quietly together. The redhead hadn't shown up yet, apparently.

Hermione was just beginning to be worried for her own sanity when she realised that she wasn't seeing people in the garden who couldn't possibly be there. Instead, she wasn't in the garden any more. Well, at least she wasn't in the slightly overgrown formal garden outside her aunt and uncle's house. She was in the garden of a suburban semi, which had the look of a film or television set, as if the owners wanted everyone to know just how important and sophisticated a family they thought themselves to be. It wasn't any place she'd ever been before. She wasn't sure she if would like the people who lived in that house.

But that didn't make sense, because she knew she would like the boy and the girl on the blanket. Well, perhaps it wasn't their house. Even if they did live there, they wouldn't have had much control over its appearance. After all, they couldn't have been any older than her.

Then again, none of this made sense. She wasn't where she should be. There was no way that she could have, in a few seconds, travelled from the formal garden of her aunt and uncle's country house to, well, wherever this was.

Was she drifting through a dreamworld of illusions, having fallen and hit her head? Had she been abducted by a UFO and then deposited, with no recollection of being taken, in some strange place where she'd find it was days or weeks after the last moment she remembered? Or was there magic in the world after all, complete with fairies at the bottom of the garden who'd just swept a lonely Hermione Granger away?

She pinched herself, just in case she was dreaming. It didn't work. "This can't be true. If it's not a dream or an hallucination, it's an adventure, and I never get to have adventures."

"Well, then, isn't it about time you had one?" That was the blonde girl. She stood up, taking the boy by the hand and bringing him with her. "I don't see anything too dramatic happening here at the moment, but perhaps it's a quiet sort of adventure? That would be rather nice, I should think, a quiet, pleasant adventure to draw you into the habit of having them. I do hope we can be a part of it with you. If you wouldn't mind?"

"Err... sure. That would be nice. I'm sorry if I'm, well, trespassing. I didn't mean to be here. A minute ago, I was in the garden at my aunt and uncle's house, or at least I think it was only a minute or two ago. I don't think it could be very long after then, because your clothes and the house don't look all that different to the kinds I'm familiar with, so I don't think it's likely that I've been transported into the future after some developer has knocked their house down and built a suburban estate in its place. So... what day is it? And where am I?"

She was worried that they'd both think she was either mad or trying to play some very stupid trick on them, but the blonde girl smiled as if she were used to being asked similar questions, or even to asking them herself. "It's Monday, the twenty-fifth of June, or at least it was the last time I looked at a calender, and I'm pretty sure that was this morning. And I don't actually know where we are. Harry?"

The boy, at least, looked nearly as confused as Hermione felt. That was a comfort. "Number Four, Privet Drive. Little Whinging, Surrey. Umm... I'm Harry Potter, and this is Luna Lovegood, by the way."

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Hermione Granger. And thank you... I'm really glad to know it's the same day that I, well, left. And if this is Surrey, then I've not travelled into an alternate universe where somebody built a new town in the place where my aunt and uncle's house is in my universe. That is, unless England broke up into counties here and Surrey fought a war and took over Kent..."

"No," Harry said.

"That's good."

"I'm fairly sure that we're from the same universe, Hermione. You don't have the alternate world look about you, really. Although I do like the look of you, very much, and I certainly wouldn't think any less of you if you did come from an alternate universe. But no, I think you showed up here much the same as I did, and for much the same reason, because it was time for us to be meeting Harry Potter. And each other as well, of course."

"Oh." Hermione knew that she should be protesting, because it made absolutely no sense that she would be transported by some unknown means to meet with a boy and a girl whom she'd never heard of before. Or, for that matter, with ones she had. Not that she could remember ever hearing the name Harry Potter before, and never mind the strange little thrill that ran through her on hearing that name or the bizarre feeling that she had seen Harry and Luna before somewhere, perhaps in a dream. Fated meetings with magical co-incidences to help them along were the stuff of fantasy novels, not real life.

Of course, she had just appeared in a place she'd never been before, having somehow travelled at least sixty miles in mere minutes or less, since the sun seemed to be in about the same place in the sky as it had been. Perhaps, as hard as it might be to believe, she _was_ living in a fantasy novel. Or at least in a science fiction story. After all, it could have been something like the transporter from _Star Trek_ that brought her here. Hermione shook her head. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Or is it?"

"Clarke's Third Law? There's some truth in it, I suppose, although I wonder if Arthur C. Clarke would have formulated it quite that way if he'd spent more time round actual, functioning magic before he said it. And then there are fusions of the two, such as the Knight Bus or the Wizarding Wireless, and I'm not sure how those would factor in. I wish Daddy had asked when he met Mister Clarke last year. They went on the Knight Bus for a tour of London, but unfortunately neither one of them could write about it because of the Statute of Secrecy. They had a few pints at the Leaky Cauldron afterwards, and a very interesting chat about the Skatalites that the Muggles have, and why the Yetis in Nepal have never gone into the business of supporting mountain climbers the way the Sherpas have done, and whether it might be useful to send a magical probe to Mars along with the Muggle ones."

"Err... do you mean 'satellites'? And what is a Muggle?"

"No, actually, they were talking about the band from Jamaica. I think they might have said something about 'satellites' as well, but that was around the same time Mummy worked out that I had put a bug on Daddy's robes and made me stop listening. I don't understand why she was so put out, really. We're journalists in my family, after all, and I have to practice somehow, don't I? I promised her that I'd given my moths strict orders to always leave immediately if she and Daddy started kissing. I mean, really, I don't think I would want them listening if I were kissing anyone, would I?"

Hermione felt as if she'd just gone through the looking glass, or possibly fallen down a rabbit hole. "How are you dealing with this so calmly? I'm sorry, but I just don't understand it. A girl you've never met before just stepped out of the thin air, and you're acting as if this sort of thing happens all the time?" A terrible thought occurred to her. "Or did I? Am I going mad?"

"Well, I can't say that you stepped out of thin air, because as near as I can tell the air's about the same thickness here as it is most other places I've been at this altitude, and I suppose I can't say for certain if you're going mad because folk have said that about me often enough and I didn't feel any different to how I've felt any other time, but you did just appear here. It's called Apparation when you're old enough and able to do it for yourself at will. In your case, it's probably just a bit of Fate. Or accidental magic, if you'd prefer, but then again nobody ever said that Fate didn't use ordinary phenomena as tools to do her job with. Or at least I hope nobody ever said that, because if they did they were being very silly and I'd have to feel a bit embarrassed for them."

"Accidental magic? What? In stories magic always needs intent and will, at least on somebody's part. And magic's only in stories, besides. This really happened, didn't it?"

"Of course it did. Magic really happens all the time. Every time somebody uses the Floo, or turns on the Wizarding Wireless, or takes a portkey to Samarkand like my parents did a fortnight ago, or casts _Colloportus_ on their door to stop their daughter bothering them when they're doing grown up things they don't want to talk about... You see what I mean?"

"Err, not really." Hermione wanted to be angry, or at least irritated, the way she usually felt when folk wouldn't simply say what they meant to say in a clear and logical fashion. But somehow it was impossible to be angry with Luna, who seemed so funny and natural and simply, well, cute, or with Harry who seemed as if he were almost at much at sea as she herself was and who had those darling green eyes as well.

"Oh, right, you asked what a Muggle was. I'm sorry, I got so caught up in the rest of the story that I forgot to answer your question. A Muggle is a person without any significant ability to use magic. I expect you're a Muggleborn, which is what we call a magical person whose parents don't have magic, or at least not in the conventional and technical sense of the word. Accidental magic is just something that happens to us before we've learnt to control our powers. I expect some funny things have happened around you before, haven't they?"

"Well... when I was maybe two, according to Mum and Dad, my Nan made me a pink jumper. I didn't like the colour at all, but they said I should at least wear it once so she could see that I appreciated her gift. So I had it on, and we were in the car going to see her, and somehow it turned periwinkle blue. They were absolutely mortified, and kept apologising for putting the wrong jumper on me, but my Nan told them she'd know her own knitting anywhere and said she was thrilled that her old eyes had tricked her into using the blue yarn, because it looked much nicer on me than pink."

"See! You're a witch, Hermione. And a powerful one, I should think. Not to mention that you had good taste even at two years of age. Periwinkle would be wonderful with your colouring, but I don't think pink suits you at all. Well, except for that little flush that's in your cheeks right now. That looks darling on you."

"Err... thanks." Hermione really wasn't used to being complimented at all, especially not by a girl of about her own age.

"Luna's right. You... you look really nice, Hermione."

She was even less used to being complimented by boys of about her own age. "Th... thank you, Harry. You also."

And now his face was flushed as well. She did like the look of it. But wait... it wouldn't be right to make Luna think she had designs on her boyfriend. That is, if Harry was Luna's boyfriend. Hermione didn't know much about that sort of thing. Her mother had told her she really shouldn't date until she was at least sixteen, and that even then it would be better to wait until she was at university before getting too serious about it, but she did hear girls at school talking about their boyfriends and sometimes getting into fights over them, which made her think that her mother had the right idea.

She really hoped there wouldn't be a problem. Luna was the first girl she'd met who was so close to her age and who knew, and, what was more, cared about things like Clarke's Laws. She really thought it was possible that they might actually become friends. If it hadn't been ridiculous, she would have even said that it seemed as if they'd been friends from the moment they met.

"Oh, Hermione. Thank you! Harry's face really looks very good like that. He's just as pretty as you are, and both of you are just as pretty as Ginevra, who's about the prettiest person I've ever seen, other than the two of you. Wait, is 'pretty' not the word for boys? He's just as handsome as you're pretty, is that what I'm meant to say? I hope so, because it's true."

"Err..."

"So, lovely and honourable Miss Hermione Granger, I'm Luna Mairéad Radha Llywelyn Mihoshi Sasha Nyota Bob Good Lord How Many Names Has This Poor Child Got? Fatima Breandán Myfanwy Lovegood, and I would be delighted if you'd call me Luna, although you're welcome to call me by another name if you'd prefer to, or even to give me a new one. I'm pleased and delighted and honoured to meet you, and I really hope we're friends, because it would be wonderful to have a new friend who's got such good taste and who knows about Clarke's Third Law and who makes Harry get such pretty colours on his face." Luna held out her hand, and Hermione took it.

"Pleased to meet you. Err, I'm Hermione Jane Granger, and you're very welcome to call me Hermione. And I don't know very much about having friends, but I'd love to be friends with you and Harry."

"Wonderful! And I don't know very much about having friends, either, beyond Ginevra who lives on the next farm over from mine and I really hope she shows up soon because I think you'll simply love each other, but I reckon we can work all of that out together."

"I'm Harry James Potter, and I'd really like it if you'd call me Harry. It's nice to meet you, Hermione." They shook hands, which felt pleasantly grown up. "I don't know much about having friends, myself. You and Luna are the first ones I've ever had. My cousin always scared people away from me, before."

"His cousin looks a most unpleasant sort of gorilla-whale hybrid, only pinker and blonder than either of those usually are. Fortunately, he doesn't seem able to see me."

As if on cue, two boys came out of the house. Luna was right about Harry's cousin, assuming, of course, that he was the larger one. The smaller boy looked rather unpleasantly like a ferret, a mean and ugly one rather than a nice ferret like the one Mister Robinson next door had for a pet, which rode on his shoulder when he went walking and danced when he sat in his front garden and played the fiddle.

"Nice job, Scarhead! We're off for ice cream now. No time for hunting you, but maybe we'll give you a boxing lesson later. Hope you're having fun in the dirt! Ta ta!"

"And, as I suspected, he can't see you, either, Hermione. That's awfully convenient, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is, when you put it that way. And I thought my cousin Victor was... unpleasant, but all he does is act creepy, as if he were trying to flirt with me, even as he's insisting that we're cousins so of course he hasn't got any designs on me. It wouldn't be so bad, really, except that my parents are away in Africa and I have to stay with his family."

"Well, that's very impolite of him, and I'm sorry you've had to put up with it when the worst I've ever had to deal with was Ginevra's brother Ronald pushing me into the pond when I was eight and then pretending to claw his eyes out when I took my clothes off to wring them dry. Perhaps that's part of why you came here today, to get away from him? It seems possible, although I do have the feeling that the three of us would have met each other eventually."

"Yes." Hermione didn't know what else to say. She'd been raised to believe in logic and to understand that things like fated meetings only happened in books, but something felt very right about Luna and Harry.

"So, Hermione... am I correct in thinking that friends hug each other? Ginevra and I always have done, of course, but I suppose that's not really a large enough sample to draw a conclusion from. So, if you don't mind... may we hug you?"

"Umm... okay." Hermione wasn't a very huggy person, and didn't come from a very huggy family. Her parents hugged each other, of course, and hugged her, but they weren't the sort of people who went about hugging everyone at the drop of a hat, the way that Russians and Italians and French people seemed to do. She'd never imagined wanting to hug somebody she'd only just met. The fact that somewhere inside she _liked_ the idea of hugging Harry and Luna bothered her. It simply didn't make sense. "If you really want to. You don't have to hug me if you don't want to..."

"But I do." And Luna hugged her. It really shouldn't have felt so nice. But it did.

Hermione realised that she was not only hugging Luna, but practically clinging to her. Then again, Luna was practically clinging to Hermione. "Umm... thank you. It... it's nice to be hugged."

"Oh, thank you, Hermione. It's very nice to hug you. Harry's very nice to hug as well, and I do think you should hug each other. Would that be okay?"

"Well, sure. If you want to, Harry." Luna held her at arm's length for a moment before letting go, smiling brightly, almost as if Hermione Granger was one of the most wonderful discoveries she'd ever made.

"Um... if you don't mind hugging me, Hermione. It's okay if..." There was something almost unbearably endearing about Harry. His hair was messy, he was rather too thin, and his clothes looked like cast-offs from his cousin, who had to be twice his weight. If they'd been older, Hermione would have said that she fancied him. But obviously they were too young for that, so she'd simply say that he was the only boy she'd ever met whom she instantly thought she'd like to have for a friend.

"Actually... if you wouldn't mind, Harry, I'd, well, I'd like to hug you." Hermione reached out, and, somehow, they were hugging.

It was every bit as wonderful as hugging Luna. If this was what having friends was like, then Hermione was glad that she finally had found some.  



	3. Luna Reflects

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luna's views on life, the universe, the scholarship of Erich Fell Von Nyland, and, last but most certainly not least, the delightful Hermione Granger and Harry Potter.

Luna was unspeakably delighted to have found such a perfectly darling boy and girl to be friends with. Well, she'd heard that phrase "unspeakably delighted," and she supposed it was an appropriate description for how she was feeling at the moment. She assumed that the Unspeakables were frequently delighted. How could they not be, when they got to work with such interesting things, such as the Power of Love, the Frying Pan of Destiny, the truth about Biting Pears, and possibly even the role of Crumple-horned Snorkacks in combating the Rotfang Conspiracy?

That was assuming, of course, the the Unspeakable in question wasn't a member of the Rotfang Conspiracy him-or-herself. They couldn't all be non-Rotfangs, after all. Although perhaps those who were Rotfangs were actually involved in the whole conspiracy business as Unspeakable operatives, just in case the Rotfangs might come up with something useful or interesting to the Unspeakables' larger goals, which for some reason nobody ever talked too much about. Presumably they had something to do with spell-creation or intellectual curiosity or the colonisation of the asteroids before the Muggles beat them to it? Not that Wizards and Muggles couldn't share the Asteroid Belt, just as they'd shared the Earth for all these millennia, but it might be nice to get out there first.

Of course, it was also possible that Mummy and Daddy's friend Erich Fell Von Nyland, a man who did a lot of rather dodgy scholarship, wrote books full of that scholarship, and always wore a gilded kumquat dangling from his septum ring, was right and Wizards already had been out there, thousands of years in the past, travelling on the backs of a long-extinct breed of leaping cattle memorialised in the poem about the cow who jumped over the Moon and by the stone circles which the ancient magical folk had actually built, according to him, as launch and landing pads rather than the magical power accumulators that most Wizarding archaeologists thought they had been.

Luna didn't think that was at all likely. Not because she automatically agreed with mainstream scholarship, of course, but because Mister Von Nyland clearly didn't understand the complementary roles of Nargles and mistletoe in the ecosystem and had made no effort to factor them into his revised view of leylines and magical bovines. Of course she was far too polite to actually say so, even when he talked about nothing else for an entire afternoon tea. As Daddy always said, some people simply had to learn things for themselves.

It really did appear that Mister Von Nyland had more than a bit of trouble with the whole business of learning. Luna had seen his kumquats snatched by Nifflers, crows, starlings, and even, on one occasion, a capuchin monkey, dressed in a Chinese scholar's cap and robes and mounted on a child's toy broomstick, which had flown out of a hedgerow and just as quickly escaped. Every time it happened he expressed amazement, puzzlement, and frustration before summoning himself another grape-sized gilded citrus fruit, as if he'd never even imagined that such a thing might happen. Luna was never sure if he genuinely forgot the previous kumquat-thefts within hours of their occurrence, if he regularly Obliviated himself, or if every time he was completely convinced that whatever new precautions he took would succeed, even though they never did.

In any case, people sometimes had to learn things for themselves. And it was a very fortunate fact that some of them actually did. After all, wasn't Luna learning that Harry Potter, although he didn't live, as all the books depicted him doing, in a well-equipped manor where he spent all the time he didn't use for being polite and helpful to his neighbours and eating all his veg in training so that he'd be ready to go out and fight dragons at a moment's notice when little girls needed rescuing, was even more wonderful, and huggable, than she and Ginevra had imagined?

And wasn't Luna learning that adorable brunette Muggleborn girls who carried copies of _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ and needed to do accidental Apparations to get away from their creepy cousins who went to a school called Eton were incredibly wonderful and huggable as well? Eton was apparently something like a Muggle version of Hogwarts, except that it was for boys only, which didn't make any sense and actually sounded quite miserable for them, because as much as she didn't object to some of Ginevra's non-Ronald brothers as individuals they were noisy and much too quick to start fighting amongst themselves when confined together in the same place for very long. So perhaps Hermione's cousin had a slight excuse, but in any case Luna was very glad Hermione had got away from him, not to mention how delighted she was that Hermione's magic had decided to bring her here instead.

She really hoped Ginevra would get here soon, because she'd love to share these new friends with her dearest friend whom she'd known since they were two. Ginevra had always wanted to meet Harry Potter, and she'd look simply darling next to Harry and Hermione, with her bright red hair and all her freckles. Besides that, Luna loved to share things with her friends, and that included her friends. They were people, of course, rather than things, but the principle still applied, and she wanted to share them with each other, because she thought they'd all enjoy each other tremendously.

Well, perhaps whatever event would cause Ginevra to show up hadn't happened yet. They'd simply have to wait, even if it meant staying overnight. She'd been planning on that already, after all. Merlin knew how long it might be before Auntie Imogene sobered up, and Merlin wasn't telling. _I'd much rather stay with Harry and Hermione. Even if I do have to wear clothes until they're more comfortable with me. After all, I have to wear them when Auntie Imogene's about, at least until she gets into such a state that she'd not notice if I turned into an Erumpent, let alone what I'm wearing or not wearing._

Besides, Luna thought the four of them should stay together overnight, just on general principle. Sleepovers with Ginevra were always wonderful and all sorts of fun, and a sleepover with Harry and Hermione and Ginevra couldn't help but be just as brilliant, if not even more so. After all, there was no Ronald here to be irritating until Mrs. Weasley told them all to stop it and to go to bed.

Ronald was irritating during the day as well, of course, but then Ginevra and Luna could declare they were going to the nearest bit of water for a bathe. When that happened Ronald always loudly proclaimed his distaste for the very concept of them being unclothed anywhere on the same landmass as himself before running off to annoy someone else or throw rocks at random bits of landscape.

Ronald didn't come and bother them when they were in Ginevra's bedroom, of course, but he sometimes snored loud enough that they could still hear him, and he attracted so many Wrackspurts that it was difficult to completely relax anywhere near him. It would be much nicer for Luna and Ginevra to be with Harry and Hermione instead.

Excuses for getting rid of Ronald aside, Luna liked bathing with Ginevra simply because it was a fine pleasant thing to do. She was certain that bathing with Harry and Hermione and Ginevra would be tremendous fun as well. That said, she supposed it might be a while before Harry got comfortable enough to take off his clothes, judging by what little bit she knew of boys who were neither Ronald nor Ginevra's other brothers, who were a bit better behaved but also less likely to spend time in the company, or even the vicinity, of their little sister and her best friend.

She knew instinctively that Harry wouldn't be like Ronald, who said he'd rather claw his eyes out than see a naked girl, or even one who was down to her knickers. Of course she couldn't help but notice that Ronald hadn't _actually_ done the clawing out bit for real that one time when he'd pushed her into the pond and she'd had to wring her dress out, although at least he'd had gone away once he was done with his mock-retching and mock-clawing, and that was good enough, because Luna didn't want to see his eyeballs out of their sockets and she knew it would distress Ginevra tremendously. After all, unpleasant though he could be, Ronald was still Ginevra's brother, and that had to count for something.

In any event, Luna didn't know for sure what Harry would be like, beyond the little bit she'd seen so far, which obviously hadn't included bathing or any number of other things. She imagined that he would be shy, because the gallant boys in stories were always blushing bright scarlet, turning their gazes away, and offering cloaks or shirts or whatever garment they had to spare when they came across girls who'd had their clothes stolen when they were bathing. But she didn't know precisely how shy he would be, or how long it might take him to get comfortable.

For that matter, she didn't know how Harry felt about the Crumple-horned Snorkack, or the Rotfang Conspiracy, or even the terrible depletion of Nargles which had begun in the early Fifties when people began farming mistletoe on an industrial scale. There was really rather a lot to learn about him, wasn't there?

Well, she knew he'd be wonderful, because he obviously was wonderful. That was enough, and Luna was looking forward to finding out much more about Harry Potter. She was looking forward to finding out much more about Hermione Granger as well, and of course she was always interested in finding out more about Ginevra. There was always more to learn about a person, even if you'd known her nearly as long as either of you could remember.

It was a research project that would take years, of course. And it probably never would be exactly complete, not until they were all on the other side of the Veil together, and perhaps not even then. But that was fine. More than fine, it was perfect.

Harry and Hermione were sitting together on the blanket, looking slightly startled, like a pair of antelope in the headlights of Cousin Sannie's Muggle-built Landrover, which they'd ridden in when her parents took her to Africa looking for dinosaurs. Luna hoped they'd get over looking startled at some point, but she did have to admit that they made a very cute pair of startled antelope. Then again, they'd make a very cute pair of almost any sort of creature one cared to name, even the ones who weren't usually cute at all.

"Has either of you ever contemplated becoming an Animagus? That's what we call Wizards and Witches who can turn into animals. I've always thought it would be tremendously interesting."

Hermione smiled. "I used to have dreams about turning into animals--wolves, seals, bears, all sorts of creatures--when I was little. I was a little bit upset when my teacher told me that one couldn't do that in real life. So, if it turns out that I could... well, I might like that. At least as long as we can do it together."

"Not everyone can, but I think it's worth finding out if we could. One of my great great grandmothers could turn into a cat, and her husband was a dog Animagus. I suppose that makes them sound a bit of an odd couple, but it worked for them. I'm told they met because he was an Auror working a case in his dog form, she walked past and taunted him, he felt he had to pursue her in order to stay in character, and they ended up playing cat-and-mouse, or dog-and-cat, I suppose I should say, halfway across Bristol before they worked out that they were both only part-time four-legged furry people."

Hermione still looked a little bit shocked, but she giggled, which Luna reckoned was a very good sign. Harry, on the other hand, got a very pensive expression on his face. "I... it's the strangest thing, but I could swear I remember a man who turned into a big black dog, and another who turned into a deer. I think one of them was my uncle, or something like that, and the other might have been my dad. I know it's ridiculous, because I was too small to remember anything that happened before my parents ran their car into a ditch and died and my aunt and uncle had to take my ungrateful freeloading self in."

His voice was calm, but Hermione looked about ready to cry. Luna could relate, because she felt much the same. That was a good thing, of course. Luna's grandmother had told her that she and her wives had first begun to work out that they could share Luna's grandfather when they noticed that they nearly always felt exactly the same way about him. Hermione was cute, and Luna could definitely imagine sharing Harry with her. More than that, Luna could definitely imagine sharing her with Harry as well, and her grandmother said that was every bit as important.

Luna was definitely looking forward to introducing Harry and Hermione to Ginevra and seeing if Ginevra also might feel exactly the same way about the real, personal, and very personable Harry Potter and the equally real and equally personable Hermione Granger. But further thinking on the subject could wait until Ginevra made her appearance, because there were more important things to deal with at the moment. "Harry, even very small babies can remember things, and all the books say that you were fifteen months old on that Halloween. Don't you think it's possible that your aunt and uncle were telling miserable falsehoods when they told you that you couldn't remember those things, just as they're telling miserable and vicious falsehoods when they say there's no such thing as the magic which all three of us and dear Dizzy have, the magic that brought Hermione and me here? Just as they're lying when they say your parents died running their car into a ditch, as a matter of fact."

Hermione reached out and laid her hand on Harry's arm. "I... I'm sorry, Harry. So sorry."

"But... you didn't do it, Hermione. Oh, please don't cry. I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings." That only made Hermione cry harder.

"N...not your f...fault, Harry." Hermione was very pretty when she cried. That was an interesting bit of aesthetic information, but Luna would far rather have seen Hermione being very pretty when she laughed or swam or ran through a field or read a book that made her happy or snuggled with Harry instead. Speaking of which, Harry reached out to pet Hermione on her shoulder. Or at least that was what Luna thought he intended to do, as he looked completely, not to mention adorably, gobsmacked when he instead found himself with his arms full of bawling bushy-haired brunette beauty. Which might well have been an excess application of alliteration, Luna knew, but she didn't care.

In place of further worrying about principles of poetry, prose, and rhetoric, Luna knee-walked her way across the blanket. Harry still looked gobsmacked, but he clearly had good instincts. He'd folded Hermione up in his arms and was stroking the back of her neck. Luna paused for a moment to admire the pair at arms' length before she hugged them.

"I'm sorry you're hurting, Hermione," Harry whispered. "Is there anything I can do?"

Hermione mumbled something that Harry clearly didn't understand. Luna decided to interpret for her. "I believe she's saying that she's crying because she's sad for _you,_ Harry. And I'm sad for you as well. You don't deserve to be treated the way those vile people treat you."

"Oh."

Hermione, still sniffling, raised her head a bit so she could be heard. "It's not natural, Harry. You're a wonderful person. I barely know you, and I can tell that. And nobody deserves to be abused."

"Well, they've always let me have something to eat, and they've never hit me so hard that anything serious got broken, and my cupboard's dry and hasn't got too many bugs in."

Luna shook her head. "But they've told you you were ungrateful and freeloading, Harry, when at the same time they were sending you out to do all of this work for them that Dizzy's been helping with today. And on top of that your vile cousin's out walking about with his ferrety friend doing badly by other folk and eating ice cream instead of putting in his share of the work. That's appalling and nasty and stupid and all sorts of wrong."

"I suppose you're right, but it's the way it's always been."

"It shouldn't be. And now it won't be, because you've got Hermione and myself and Dizzy, and I've got this very strong intuition that you'll soon have Ginevra as well."

"But... I've always done the work. I can't make other people do everything, or I'd be no better than the Dursleys."

Hermione raised up her head to look in Harry's eyes. Her face was tear-streaked and beautiful, and Luna felt her heart give a little skip and a leap in her chest. "We'll all do our part, Harry. We're together. I don't know why we're together, but we are and I'd not have it any other way." She kissed him on the cheek. Seconds later, her face went bright scarlet, as if she'd not realised what she'd done until after she did it. Harry's face was just as bright. After a moment, he kissed Hermione's cheek.

"I'd not have it any other way, either," Luna said, and kissed each of them on the cheek. "And now perhaps you'd like my handkerchief to wipe your eyes with, my dear Hermione?"

The pretty brunette nodded. Luna didn't like the idea of Hermione having to let go of Harry, because they looked so cute together and it surely must have felt really nice for them as well, so she fished her handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped Hermione's eyes herself. Luna was always thinking about things, and wondering what they'd feel like, and making up new experiences that she looked forward to having some day, but she'd never imagined that blotting the tears from another person's eyes could feel so purely pleasant as it did.

"Err... thank you, Luna."

"Thank you, Hermione. That was a new experience, and I can never have too many of them, although I do regret your being unhappy enough to cry, and I'd very much like to do a great deal more hugging of the pair of you when you're not crying as well."

"I'd like that as well."

Harry nodded, so it was clear he agreed also. The three of them stayed together like that for some little while, not needing to talk.

At last Harry whispered, as quietly if he were afraid of waking the girls or disturbing some specimen of local wildlife, "Luna? How do you know about my parents and, well, about me? You've said there are books, but I don't understand why there would be. I'm nothing very special, even if I can do some kind of magic, a little bit, and I do have to admit that would explain some things that have happened to me."

"Well, Harry, your parents were the Potters. James Potter was the son of a very old family in our world, and Lily Potter was a Muggleborn and I think she must have been very much like our Hermione, one of the brightest and most powerful witches of her age. There was a war going on, back round when we were very small, you see. You-Know-Who was trying to take over, and his followers--they were called Deatheaters, I suppose because it sounds scary--were attacking all sorts of people, especially Muggles and Muggleborns, and your parents were some of the people who fought back hardest. So it was natural that You-Know-Who and his henchmen hated your family most of all."

"Err... Luna, I'm afraid I _don't_ know who. And I'm not sure Hermione does, either."

"If I knew, I'd tell you. But I'm afraid I have to admit that nobody's ever told me his name. The last time I asked, Daddy told me I wasn't old enough to know it yet. I suppose that makes it sound a bit like sex, but at least when I was wondering about that I could borrow his and Mummy's books when they weren't looking, and to be honest I found out enough that I'm not in any hurry to know much more about it, although it does sound as if it will be a great deal of fun when we're a bit more grown up. I tried looking through all the books to find out about You-Know-Who as well, but every single one just said 'You-Know-Who' and 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named' and 'The Dark Lord,' which doesn't make sense. All the other Dark Lords have always had names, even Dark Lord Ernestine who was really only angry at his parents for giving him the name his grandmother had meant for his sister Bob and who stopped being a Dark Lord as soon as he found out that he could change it to Harriet by deed poll, so I don't understand it at all."

Hermione stirred. "That's kind of silly. Doesn't being afraid of a name just make people more afraid of the person whose name it is?"

"I think you're right, my dear. Daddy did say that, even though I wasn't old enough to know his actual name, it sounded kind of like Mouldy Shorts, so maybe we should call him that instead?"

Harry looked pensive. "Maybe. So... this Dark Lord's followers, these Deatheaters, they killed my parents?"

"Actually, Harry, he came to do it himself, in person, which he didn't usually do so it must have been important to him for some reason. Nobody knows exactly what happened next, but all the reports agree that he killed them, but then he couldn't kill you. And somehow not being able to do that made him explode or vaporise or vanish or turn into a midge or something. In any case, all that anybody found was his empty black robes. And there you were, with no hurts but that scar you've got on your forehead. Well, that's what the books say, but I'm thinking you must have been hurt something horrible by losing them, Harry. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, Luna." His eyes were soft, full of concern for her, and somehow Luna knew that she felt exactly the same way about him that her Mummy felt about her Daddy.

"Oh, Harry, I do know that. But it's what people are meant to say, or so I'm told. And... I do regret it, very much, that you've had to grow up without them. My Mummy almost died not long ago, and that was terrible, and I can't imagine how much worse it would be to actually have lost her. And oh my goodness, I'm crying, aren't I?" Luna didn't cry all that often, and she really hadn't expected it to start up so quickly. It was something of an interesting experience. "It's funny. All in all I feel fairly happy, because I've met such wonderful new friends as you two, but at the same time I'm crying. I don't think that's ever happened to me before, although I've read about it in books. I suppose I must be getting rather a lot of experience points for this, mustn't I?"

Hermione giggled. "I never would have imagined that actual wizards and witches would go for role-playing games, just like my cousin Astrid. The ones she plays mostly have magic in, except for Traveller which is science fiction, although there are some psionics which I suppose is sort of similar. Are your games sort of like the reverse of hers?"

"Gaming is more Mummy and Daddy's thing than mine, but I think they play some games that have magic and some that are about the Muggle world, or at least about what Wizards and Witches think the Muggle world is like. Does your cousin play 'Carriageways and Cars,' or is that only a Wizarding thing?"

"I've never heard of it, so I'd imagine it is. Astrid and some of my other cousins play 'Dungeons and Dragons,' which sounds sort of similar, I think, as if somebody had heard of the non-magical game and made up a version for magical people, or maybe it was the other way round? And I'm sorry, I'm not even wiping your eyes. Here." Having her eyes wiped with Hermione's handkerchief was nearly as enjoyable as wiping Hermione's eyes with her own one. That was another nice new thing to know.

"It's all right, Hermione. Thank you."

"Thank you, Luna. Thank you." Hermione's eyes were soft and loving, the colour of cinnamon, warm and deep and full of feeling. Somehow Luna knew in that instant that she felt exactly the same feelings for Hermione that she did for Harry. And since those seemed as if they might be the same feelings that her parents felt for each other... well, it was definitely a good thing that Harry and Hermione looked to feel something like the same for each other.

Luna couldn't really see much in the way of auras yet, except sometimes by pure luck as she was falling asleep or waking up or looking out the corner of her eye and thinking about something else, but she was told that as she got older it would become much easier. She was looking forward to that day, because she had a strong feeling both Harry and Hermione would have especially pretty ones. She'd caught a glimpse of Ginevra's aura, once or twice, and that was a very nice one, especially when she was reading one of her favourite Boy Who Lived books or thinking about happy things or falling asleep with a smile on her face because it was a night when Ronald's snoring wasn't loud enough to come up through the floorboards. Luna felt certain it would also look very fine if it were mingling with Harry's and Hermione's auras.

That was another thing she was very much looking forward to seeing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we have Luna's viewpoint, which is a bit difficult to write when she's this age, whence the length of time it took me to post. I think (or at least I hope) I've kept her in character with the rest of the story.
> 
> The next bit will have Ginny making her appearance at Number Four Privet Drive.
> 
> And yes, I find Edo Nyland's rubbish deeply offensive. As someone who studied linguistic anthropology I'm offended by the pseudoscience, but as a speaker of a European minority language I am enraged that some Canadian-Dutch crank wants me to believe the ancestral tongue which I love and cherish is nothing more than a fraud made out of Basque by evil monks. Sáigh suas do thóin é, a Nyland!


	4. Ginny's Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ginny Weasley discovers that Harry Potter is even better than the Boy Who Lived, not least because he comes as a set with Hermione Granger.

Ginny Weasley was bored stiff. Aunt Muriel--she was actually Ginny's great aunt, but the youngest Weasley didn't think there was anything great about Muriel Prewett beyond her great ability to be a miserable person to anyone within range of her screeching voice--had certain notions about what girls and boys were meant to do. Boys, of course, were meant to dig in the garden, feed the cows, cut down or pull up growing things that shouldn't be, and watch the sheep, but when they weren't doing such things it was perfectly appropriate for them to ramble about and not so terrible for them to get dirty, at least as long as they didn't cause scandal or fail to wipe their feet before they came inside.

Girls, on the other hand, were meant to be polite, to keep their voices down, and to do the things that had been appropriate for them to do during Aunt Muriel's own Crimean War-era girlhood, such as embroidery or mending, if they weren't helping with the cooking and cleaning. And God and Merlin forbid that a girl should even mention that she'd ever flown on a broomstick in her life, much less say it was a nice day for a fly and she'd love to be in the air.

Which last was the reason why Ginny was sitting here trying to sew up a seam that had given way in one of her own blouses, whilst Ron and the Twins were out flying over the farm, with the excuse that they were checking the fences to be sure that the sheep that Mister Dogburn, Aunt Muriel's neighbour, grazed on three acres of Aunt Muriel's land weren't going to get loose and either wander onto the nearby Muggle farms, where somebody might notice that some of them had blue and green wool, or else break into Aunt Muriel's garden and destroy her cabbages or her petunias or, worst of all, the herbs she put in her nightly tea.

It wasn't fair at all. Ginny had a far better eye for things like that than Ron did, and she'd actually look at the fences, whereas he would spend the whole time pretending to do Wronski feints, imagining himself playing Seeker for the Cannons, up against Caerphilly and just about to win the League for the first time since their great grandfather's boyhood.

Ginny, of course, knew that Ron's fantasies were ridiculous. Aside from the fact that the Cannons were regularly trounced in exhibition matches against International Youth Quidditch League teams and hadn't won even a friendly against Caerphilly since sometime in the 1870s, it was already clear that Ron had the build for a Keeper rather than a Seeker. His 'Wronski Feint' looked more like a pigeon with an injured wing struggling to keep in the air, or perhaps a piece of crumpled newspaper caught up in a stiff breeze. Not that her idiot brother would have looked that much better pretending to guard an imaginary hoop against imaginary Chasers with imaginary Quaffles, but at least in that case Ginny wouldn't be wishing that she had a broom and they had a real Snitch to play with so she could show him just how much of an idiot he was.

Well, maybe that wasn't fair of her, but Ron didn't have to point out to her this morning at breakfast that he and their brothers would get to go flying whilst Ginny would be stuck inside all day, except maybe if Aunt Muriel let her go out to feed the chickens or weed in the herb beds.

Ginny noticed she'd not made a stitch in the past two minutes, and went back to work, stabbing the needle into the fabric, wishing she were sewing Ron's mouth shut, or Aunt Muriel's, or better yet both. She'd take the stitches out eventually, of course... maybe when Mum and Dad came home from visiting her big brother Bill in Egypt and collected Ginny and Ron and the Twins. That way she'd not have to hear Aunt Muriel's grating ugly voice again until Christmas. For that matter, it would be tempting to leave the stitches in Ron's lips until they grew up. Maybe he'd be nicer if he had to write notes instead of talking, since he'd have to take at least a little time to think about what he was putting on the paper.

“Bloody lucky git of a Percy,” she muttered. The eldest of her brothers still at home, the one everybody said would be a prefect year after next when Ron went away to Hogwarts, Percy got to stay with his friend Cedric Diggory instead of going to Aunt Muriel's with the rest of them. Ginny had asked if she could stay with her own dearest friend Luna, since after all Luna lived on the next farm over and the girls always spent as much time as they could together, but Mum and Dad wouldn't hear of it. They pointed out that Luna's parents were away and her own Aunt Imogene was staying at the Rook to watch her. Mister and Mrs. Lovegood always insisted that Ginny was a delight and almost like a second daughter to them, but it wouldn't be fair to ask Luna's aunt to keep an eye on two energetic young girls, so they'd not even ask her. _Never mind that according to Luna's letters her Aunt barely even takes the time to notice she's there, although I suppose we couldn't have said that to Mum and Dad in any case, since it might make them worry. Good job Luna's got Dizzy to keep her company--if she didn't, I'd be worried about her being so alone. Not that_ I _wouldn't rather be alone all summer than have to spend even a day with_ bloody _Aunt Muriel..._

“Ginevra!” Aunt Muriel screeched. For a moment Ginny feared that her aunt had somehow learnt to read her mind, or at least had overheard her muttering imprecations on her absent brother. “It's time to go and feed the chickens and check for eggs.”

"Thank Merlin."

"What was that, Ginevra?"

"I said I'm coming as soon as I finish this seam, Aunt Muriel."

"Well, be quick about it, child. When I was your age I could _make_ an entire blouse in less time than it takes you to sew up one seam."

Ginny bit back her response and hastily finished the last stitches. She put down the blouse and went out the door, pausing to pick up a basket for the eggs.

Out in the yard, a broomstick buzzed her, the rider's heels barely a foot over her head. "Hey, ickle Gin-Gin, just thought I'd check up on you! How's life on the ground, huh?"

"Just you let me get in the air, Ronald Bilius Weasley, and then we'll see how's life where for whom. And what are you doing here, anyhow? Why aren't you checking the fences with the Twins?"

"I just thought I'd come and check on my little sister and how she was getting on back home with the women's work. Ha ha!"

"When Fred and George catch up with you, _Ronald,_ I'm sure you'll regret running out on your chores. You'd better hope Aunt Muriel catches you first! I just hope I get to watch."

"You're not dawdling in the yard, are you, Ginevra Molly Weasley?"

Ginny thought of telling her Ron was flying over the farmyard being obnoxious instead of checking fences as he was meant to be doing, but some things just weren't done, and tattling to Aunt Muriel was one of them. The Twins would do something appropriate to Ron, and that was enough. "No, Aunt Muriel! I'm on my way to the chicken coop right now."

"Ta ta, ickle Gin-Gin! Have fun with the other birds!" Ron waved and soared off into the air. Ginny wished she had something to throw at him, or better yet a wand to jinx him with.

Lacking either, she trudged across the farmyard to the chicken coop. "Nasty, stupid, smelly, mean little beasts." Aunt Muriel's chickens were hateful creatures, nothing like the hens the Weasleys or the Lovegoods kept. Sometimes Ginny wondered if they might have actually been the result of some demented Wizard or Witch who thought crossing chickens with trolls or possibly bugbears was a good idea, but most likely it was only the case that they took after their mistress.

If only Ginny could be with Luna. That would be so much better than staying at Aunt Muriel's. They could go for a walk or a bathe together, or sit and talk about anything they wanted to talk about. Even if there were chores to do, they could do them together, and it would be fine. Neither of them had a problem with doing chores, after all, not for people whom they cared for.

That would be the perfect way to spend the summer. Ginny and Luna, and Luna's family House Elf Dizzy of course, could stay alone together and take care of each other. And then one day they'd meet Harry Potter, and of course they'd become friends right away.

But theirs wouldn't be the fictional Harry Potter from the books. Instead they'd find a real, adorable Harry Potter with whom they could be the best of friends and who might even sometimes need their help instead of only helping them all the time. When Ginny had been about eight, her mother had explained to her that the Harry Potter in the storybooks was only somebody's imagination, but that there was a real boy out there named Harry Potter, although nobody knew where he was or what he was doing. Mum had said that it was all right to read the books and enjoy them, but that when the day came that Ginny met the real Harry, as she almost certainly would once she got to Hogwarts, since Harry was about Ron's age and Ginny wasn't even a full year younger than Ron, she should remember that he was a real person, not the boy in the books who made his own bed every morning rather than leaving it for the House Elves in Potter Manor and who always ate all his veg and listened to his teachers when he wasn't out fighting dragons and saving little girls.

Ginny had already understood that, at least a little bit. She'd noticed that Harry's place of residence and the make of his broomstick and the names of his neighbours would change almost randomly from book to book. Sometimes he lived with Risaldar Major Singh, an old Sikh who'd fought a hundred battles beside his grandfather the late Colonel Potter and had raised Harry to be a _pukka sahib_ and to know that there is no such thing as fear, and sometimes his guardians were a wise grey-haired couple called Uncle Nicolas and Aunt Perenelle, and sometimes he even lived alone but for his family's House Elves. Sometimes Potter Manor was in Wales, and sometimes it was near London, and in one book it was in an unnamed part of Scotland where Harry had to rescue a red-headed girl named Morag and and her brother Hamish from a pack of haggis that had turned man-eater.

Ginny had liked that book, because in the illustrations Morag had looked a little bit like she did, except her hair was a slightly darker shade of red and her eyes were blue instead of being brown as Ginny's were. That said, she would've been tempted to ask Harry to leave Ron to the tender mercies of the haggis, so it was probably just as well that such a thing had never happened to them. In any case, the real Harry Potter would be better, because he'd be real, and he'd be hers and Luna's. And maybe they'd have another girl to be friends with as well?

Yes, Ginny would like nothing better than living with Luna, Dizzy, and Harry. And an adorable girl with masses of brown curls who'd be just as wonderful and loveable and cuddly as Harry and Luna. That would be a perfect household. They could live all the rest of their lives with each other, even sharing Family quarters at Hogwarts together, which they could do because the Potters were an Old House, and when they were grown up the only thing that would change would be that the girls would be married to Harry as well as being his best friends.

Now where had that come from? Ginny hadn't ever met anyone like that, or even thought very much about meeting her, although she knew somehow right now that she'd love to and she couldn't help but think maybe she'd been waiting all her life to meet her. But now, as quickly as the thought came into her head, she could see just such a girl sitting on a blanket in the midst of freshly mown green grass, along with a skinny boy in baggy clothes who had thick messy black hair that she knew would be wonderful to tangle her fingers in, and, perhaps best of all, Ginny's own dear friend Luna. She didn't know if the boy was really Harry Potter, but it didn't matter because she could tell that he was perfect. If he weren't Harry Potter after all, he would be even better than Harry Potter.

She knew they couldn't be there, because there wasn't freshly mown green grass in that part of Aunt Muriel's farmyard, let alone a blanket and two girls and a boy. But she could see them, and somehow she knew that if she was bold and courageous and if she moved right now she could be with them, wherever they were. Anywhere would be better than here, and the place where her friends were would be an absolute paradise as long as they could stay together there. Ginny dropped the basket and ran.

Luna was teaching the boy to brush the new girl's hair. That was really sweet, and cute, and adorable. And very Luna-like, of course. The boy looked a touch gobsmacked, but it was clear he was happy with the situation, and the girl had her eyes closed and was smiling blissfully in the sunshine. That was altogether wonderful. Ginny would love to help with the brushing, and she also would love to take her turn having her hair brushed the same way, and to brush Luna's hair with the help of the adorable girl and boy, and to see what they could do with the boy's hair as well. Bill was letting his hair grow long, now, despite Mum nagging him and saying he looked like her great great grandfather and was he going to start carrying a sword on his belt and a pistol in his boot, and would he wear lace at his cuffs and collar besides? Whatever Mum's opinion, Ginny thought long hair looked brilliant on Bill, and she was sure it would look brilliant on their own boy.

Ginny really did like the _idea_ of boys, even though some of what she'd heard and read made her think she wasn't meant to feel that way at her age, but the reality of them so far had been uniformly disappointing. Of course it was true that she hadn't so many opportunities to meet them. In fact, the only ones she'd encountered, other than Cedric Diggory, who was so old he almost didn't count, and her brothers, who didn't count at all, were a handful of distant cousins, the Wizarding boys who were in Diagon Alley when she went there with her parents and her brothers, and Muggle boys from Ottery St. Catchpole and environs. Most males of her age seemed far too much like Ron, unhappy to even acknowledge the existence of a girl unless perhaps it was to make fun of her, and the few older ones who paid her any attention, other than Cedric who acted very like a junior version of Bill and Charlie, made her feel more than a little uncomfortable.

It wasn't that she didn't like the concept of meeting a boy who said she had pretty red hair and a nice smile and adorable freckles, but she wanted to hear that from a boy who said it in the right way, a boy who'd be just as quick to say that she handled a broom well and had a quick hand for the Quaffle or the Snitch, or even that she had a nice voice and told funny jokes. It wasn't that she didn't like the concept of a boy looking at her, either, or even wanting to do more than look when they were older. She simply wanted a boy to look at her in a way that would make her feel more comfortable, rather than less. Somehow she knew that this new friend Luna had found would be just that sort of boy. After all, Ginny always felt happy with the way that Luna looked at her and the way that Luna said she was gorgeous and had beautiful skin, that she was a delight to spend time with, and that she was a wonderful person to hug.

She was on the grass now. It was soft beneath her feet, nothing like the hard-packed bare soil of her aunt's farmyard. She looked about herself, realising that she was in the fenced-in garden of a very strange sort of house, one that was attached on one side to another house that looked like a mirror image of it. Both houses were very square, straight up and down, almost as if the people who lived in them had never used any magic to make their house more comfortable for themselves or to fit it to whatever personal desire they might have had.

With a dawning sense of wonder, Ginny realised that she might well actually be in a Muggle neighbourhood. She'd walked through the streets of Ottery St. Catchpole, but she'd never been in a Muggle garden. She wondered if that meant that Luna's newfound friends were Muggleborn. Would she get to go inside a Muggle house? Daddy would be delighted, and she'd have to remember everything she could so she could do her best to answer all of the questions he'd ask about Muggle plumbing and Muggle plastering and the strange devices made of _plasstick_ and _stainless steel_ by which Muggles compelled mysterious forces like _eckletricity_ and _petrol_ to do their bidding.

The last remnants of Aunt Muriel's property faded from Ginny's view. She was here, now, really and truly here. Wherever here might be, of course. She didn't think it was China or India, because she'd read that in China they had pagodas and rice paddies and in India they had mongooses and tigers. She didn't think it was Australia, because in Australia it would be very dry, there might be sheep, and there would certainly be kangaroos, which were animals that looked something like huge giant rats, only much cuter, which jumped about on their hind legs and had pouches to carry their babies in. And she was pretty sure it wasn't America, because all the books made her think that America looked sort of like Australia except instead of sheep and kangaroos they had cows with very long horns on their heads and men wearing big hats who spent all the day on horseback following the cows about and comforting them by singing songs about “little dogies,” whatever those were.

Her best friend and the two new people she hoped would be her friends were right in front of her. And here was the awkward part. What was she meant to say? Should she greet Luna first, or should she assume that the adorable boy and girl she'd never met before were her hosts and begin by thanking them for allowing her inside their household wards, or whatever it was that Muggles had instead of household wards?

If she'd gone on much further in that vein she might've begun wondering if Luna wanted to see her at all or if her first and dearest friend was far too busy with the new and interesting people she'd met to have any time for just plain Ginny from Ottery St. Catchpole. But fortunately it was at just that moment that Luna looked up and saw her.

“Ginevra! I've missed you so much!” she cried, dropping the brush and springing to her feet, which were, as was typical for Luna, bare. She threw her arms about Ginny and the two friends hugged each other so tightly that had there been a galleon or a gold ring between their bodies not even a whole family of Nifflers could have taken it away or even known it was there. Luna hugs were always a bit like that, but this one was even more intense than usual. It had been nearly a fortnight since the two girls had seen each other.

“I've missed you as well, Luna. Aunt Muriel was being miserable. I hope your Aunt Imogene has been better to you.” Ginny noticed that Luna's new friends had stood up at some point during the long hug. They were holding hands, which for some reason she didn't entirely understand made her feel kind of warm inside.

“Oh, Auntie's been her usual self--mildly unpleasant until she's had the first of her morning potions, more unpleasant until the last of them has kicked in, and then oblivious. But that doesn't really matter right now, because I've found some wonderful new friends for us, and I'm sure and very very sure that you'll love them every bit as much as I do. Harry, Hermione, this is my dear darling Ginevra. I do hope it's all right if she joins us, Harry?” Luna released Ginny from her embrace, slowly, as if she were even more unhappy to end a hug than she normally would be.

The boy gave her a lopsided grin that made funny things happen somewhere in Ginny's midsection. He had wonderful green eyes, and she could see the edge of a scar under his forelock. In some other time and place she might have squealed, tried to hide her face, or even broken a piece of crockery in her terror, but this meeting felt so dreamlike that she accepted everything she saw and heard just as it was. “Of course it is. I mean, I'm not sure if it's all right with my relatives to have any more quote freaks unquote about the house, but then again they're not very happy that I'm here, either. In any case, as none of them seem able to see you and Hermione I doubt they'll be able to see her. And you shouldn't any of you feel as if you're missing anything, because I really rather wish they'd not see me, either.”

She held out her hand. “Hi, I'm Ginny Weasley. Luna's the only one who calls me Ginevra, most of the time, although you're very welcome to call me that if you'd like to.”

“I'm Hermione Granger. It's lovely to meet you, Ginny.” They shook hands.

"And I'm Harry Potter. It's good to meet you, Ginny."

Ginny felt as if the funny thing moving inside her middle had suddenly decided to do a Wronski feint; a good one, at that, nothing like Ron's attempts. She wanted to throw her arms about him and babble in his ear about how she'd always dreamt of meeting him, and how she'd read all the stories about him. But she remembered what her mother had said. More than that, she knew, somehow, that this boy didn't need her to throw herself at him like a silly little girl who'd just discovered a herd of ponies who really did come in pink and purple with natural glitter in their coats and cute little pictures on their bottoms. "I... it's nice to meet you, Harry. And... I've read a bunch of books about you, but I know they can't possibly be about the real you, so I'll try not to be silly, and if I am I'd be grateful if you'd tell me so I can stop annoying you."

"Err... thank you, Ginny. I don't think you could possibly be annoying, because you're a friend of Luna's and, well, all of that."

"I can see circumstances under which nearly anyone could become annoying," Luna said, "especially if various nasty people were to get the opportunity to mess with their minds. But I think we've headed safely away from all the timelines where that has any probability of happening. It really is a very good thing we've all met right now, because if we'd met too many years later it might have taken us ages to get ourselves sorted."

Ginny hoped Harry and Hermione wouldn't hold it against Luna that she'd said such a thing. She was used to Luna's unusual way of seeing the world, and found it charming, but she knew that her brothers mostly thought it was absurd and that even her parents thought Luna had an over-active imagination.

Much to Ginny's delight, Hermione hugged Luna about the shoulders. "I'm very glad to hear that, Luna. I have to admit that I was raised to believe there was no such thing as a prediction of the future, except maybe for estimates on the basis of statistical analysis, but I was also raised to believe there wasn't any such thing as magic outside of fiction and mythology. I think I like your approach much better."

"Mummy works with arithmantic analyses, which I think are sort of like Muggle statistics. She says they're very useful for predicting the likely behaviour of large groups of people and things, but not so good as the Lovegood Gift for perceiving what might happen if an individual does or doesn't do something. On the other hand, she says either one is more reliable than your typical prophecy, which is the sort of thing poor Cousin Sibyll does.”

“Oh. That's really interesting. I'd never thought about there being different sorts of psychic prediction before. How does prophecy like your cousin does work?” Hermione was almost glowing. Ginny realised that this must be the way that Hermione would always look when she was curious about something. It was a delightful sight, just as delightful as the way Luna looked when she was feeling playful and safe and happy. Ginny decided it was a look she wanted to see every day for the rest of her life. She'd realised some time ago that if she ever did find Harry Potter and marry him that she'd have to share him with Luna, because she knew Luna wanted him as well and because she'd miss her best friend and it wasn't as if the Potters weren't an Old House who had an automatic dispensation to marry multiple wives so long as everyone involved was willing. The addition of Hermione was just one of those wonderful things that a person sometimes found out when she got older, sort of like when Ginny was five or six and she learnt not only that the little fish who lived in the quiet part of the river Otter wouldn't hurt her, but that it actually felt nice when they nibbled at her toes.

“Well, my dear Hermione, nobody knows as much as we'd wish we knew. When somebody like Cousin Sibyll gives a prophecy, she goes into a sort of a trance and says something. It's not in her usual voice, and she can't remember it afterwards, and it's in what people like my Mummy call 'gnomic language,' which seems to mean that it's not at all clear what it means. I don't understand why they call it that, because Gernumblies, which are the creatures most people call gnomes, don't really talk at all, although they do make little high-pitched grumbling noises, or at least it sort of sounds like grumbling although I must admit that for all I know they might not actually be unhappy at all.”

“Does that mean the prophecy gets lost if there's nobody else about to remember it?”

“I suppose they used to be lost at one time, and maybe they still are if they happen on other landmasses, but I'm told Rowena Ravenclaw, who was a very powerful and really brilliant witch who lived almost a thousand years ago, did a big spell that created a room where all the prophecies in Britain would be captured and recorded and filed away. They call it the Hall of Prophecy, and today it's in the Ministry for Magic building in London, which is where Ginny's daddy works and where my mummy and daddy used to work until they left so they could concentrate on the _Quibbler_. That's our family's newspaper about mysteries and magizoology, although Mummy still does a lot of spell research and creation and Daddy writes novels as well. He says I'm too young to read the novels, although I sneaked a couple of looks and they were all of them full of grown-up stuff that I didn't want to know about, like sex in all sorts of different positions, so I don't know why he didn't just say so instead of telling me I was too young to read them. Grown-ups are sort of strange that way, aren't they?”

“I suppose they are, Luna,” Hermione said. “Let's try to remember not to be that way when we're grown up.”

Ginny couldn't resist. She hugged Luna and Hermione together. Harry was looking at them, she realised, rather wistfully, with his lips quirked into a small half-smile.

"Come here, Harry," she said. "It's not fair for three of us to be in a hug and one of us to be left out, is it?"

"If you don't mind?"

"How could we mind, Harry?" Hermione said, just loud enough to carry. "Ginny and Luna hugs are wonderful, and Harry and Luna hugs are just as wonderful, but right now I'd really like a Ginny and Luna _and_ Harry hug. Please?"

He hugged them, one arm about Hermione and the other about Ginny. She was being hugged by Harry Potter and his best friend, with her own best friend in the middle. That wasn't something that ever happened in the Boy Who Lived Books, but Ginny didn't care. This was better than all of the books put together, and it was real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Ginny's joined the party at last. I expect I'll need at least one more chapter to wrap things up.


End file.
